Tilda Swinton on Starring in Pedro Almodóvar's First English Language Film 'The Room Next Door'

Variety

Tilda Swinton discusses Pedro Almodóvar's film 'The Room Next Door' in the Variety Studio at TIFF.

Transcript

00:00Well, congratulations on The Room Next Door, and I know you were at the Venice Film Festival

00:15where the film received a 17-minute ovation.

00:17It was 18 and a half.

00:20So that is an amazing reception, but I wonder, what do you do during an 18 and a half minute

00:28standing ovation, and is it awkward at all to receive that kind of response?

00:34It's a funny thing.

00:35It's a very good question, because there are ovations and there are ovations, and it's

00:42a bit of a ritual now, particularly at Venice, the long ovation.

00:47It's an old tradition.

00:49People used to actually employ clacks, pay people to stand and do a lot of clapping.

00:55In opera, it's a whole thing.

00:58I don't know whether that actually happens in Venice, but it feels like it's become.

01:03People bring out timers in Venice, and they brought out a timer for us, but this time

01:08I have to say it felt really particular, because I don't know, it was Pedro.

01:12It felt like it was really personal and that the audience were really wanting to love him

01:19and send him a loving message.

01:22It was really relatively easy.

01:25It's always tricky for some people, and I'm one, to stand up in public and have a light

01:31on you, but if you're standing next to Pedro, it's all right, because you know that actually

01:35it's all about him.

01:37I was just happy to clap along with everybody else.

01:40I know this is your second time working with Pedro, but when did you first enter his orbit?

01:45How long had you been trying to work with him before?

01:50I can tell you he entered my orbit when I was, I think, a student in the 80s.

01:56I saw Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown was the first of his films I saw, and I immediately

02:02became a complete worshiper and saw everything afterwards, so that's a good 20 years of being

02:10a devotee.

02:12I met him a couple of times in rather mad scenarios, in social situations.

02:20In fact, in Hollywood, of all places, where we both were sort of standing on the outside,

02:24the periphery of a Hollywood party that was like something out of South Park, you know,

02:30Eliza Minnelli was over here, Brad Pitt was over there, and everybody in between, and

02:34Pedro and I found ourselves both independently standing, watching the spectacle, and then

02:39we caught each other's eye and kind of giggled a little bit, and that was our first moment

02:45of actual complicity.

02:47And then at a certain point, I spoke to him, and I said, listen, I'll learn Spanish, or

02:55make me a mute, but can I come and play with you?

02:59I never took it seriously, because I never thought it was ever going to be possible.

03:04But practically speaking, I entered his orbit when he asked me to play the human voice in

03:112020.

03:12Yeah.

03:14And when he's, I mean, he's such a master, he's done so many great films, but now he's

03:19working in English, and I wondered, was he, did you sense any anxiety or fear?

03:25He was clearly, and very honestly, very trepidatious about it.

03:29I think for years, for many years before he proposed the human voice, which was his first

03:36time in English, because, I think for two reasons, partly because his own fluency in

03:42English was less encouraging, but more than that, because it's not really about fluency

03:50in English, it's about finding a way to make his world in another place.

03:56And his world, even when it's in Spain, is not really in Spain, it's in his world.

04:04And I think it just took him a while to realize that he could make that world anywhere, and

04:09now he's made a film that's set in upstate New York, well, in New York state, rather.

04:17And yet it's not really that, it's Pedro's world, and the language that we speak is not

04:23really vernacular, everyday English, it's Pedro's speak, but happens to be in English.

04:30I say it's like he's always, his language is always on high heels, whatever the spoken

04:35language happens to be.

04:36He'll make a film in Farsi, and it'll be the same.

04:40This is a movie that deals with some very serious subject matter, mortality, issues

04:45of mortality, regret.

04:47What is the set like when you're doing this kind of material?

04:50Was it a very somber set, or was it not?

04:53It's sort of a rule of thumb, I find, with making films, particularly, that the subject

05:00doesn't really enter into it, ever.

05:04It's always a very relaxed environment, it doesn't really matter, I mean, I've made very

05:11frightening films that have been really very merry.

05:15This set was very calm and sweet and focused, but actually relaxed as well, and I don't

05:22know, when you're used to what you're doing for several weeks or months before, the shoot

05:27itself is just the sort of next bit, and you just fold into it, and you sort of move

05:34through it.

05:36What about working with Julianne Moore?

05:38You play lifelong friends.

05:39How did you kind of establish a rapport with her?

05:42What was she like as a scene partner?

05:44It was a real blessing, because we didn't know each other.

05:47We'd met each other a couple of times, and we didn't know each other at all.

05:51We could have known each other, we were exactly the same age, more or less, and we occupied

05:57all sorts of territories that the other had occupied, but we very, very quickly kind of

06:04fell into a rapport, and we knew what it would have been to have had that relationship.

06:12We both had the same idea about that kind of complicity and that kind of honesty, because

06:21they're able to be so open with one another and so trusting, and to respect one another,

06:27and it's a wonderful thing.

06:28I mean, I've also had the experience of catching up with people I haven't seen for 20 years,

06:34and you'll find yourself saying something like, oh, and then you got married, and how

06:38long did that last, and then you got divorced, okay, and you had how many children?

06:41These massive details about someone's life that you can just spend a couple of sentences

06:46on and then move through, because what you're really focusing on is the fact that you knew

06:51each other when you were 15.

06:54I know you were talking about sort of the subject matter doesn't always determine the

06:58attitude on the set, but does it make you think about things, like when you were doing

07:02a film like this, which is so much about death and mortality, did it make you think about

07:07your own mortality any differently?

07:09It did, absolutely.

07:10I mean, the whole proposal for me was a very rich one.

07:15I've been privileged to be in the situation that Julianne Moore occupies, the Ingrid,

07:24because her character is called Ingrid, the Ingrid position, several times in my life.

07:29It's a privileged position, I say.

07:30I really find it's been a blessing.

07:33I've yet to be in the Martha position, the position that I occupy, but I've thought a

07:39lot about how important it is to bear witness in a respectful way.

07:45So, to put myself in the situation that Martha's in, and to see Julianne putting herself into

07:53the situation that I've been so many times, felt like a real honor, and had a kind of

08:02ease to it, because at the end of the day, all we're doing is using our imagination,

08:06and it's not that exotic to imagine being in that situation, even if you haven't at

08:12our age, even if you haven't been in that situation.

08:15It's only just around the corner, or in the room next door, and so it was just a privilege

08:23to be able to just mull on it, feel it, feel the edges of it, and sort of familiarize ourselves

08:31with it.

08:32I think it's, and I hope that that is something that the film will do for people, to just

08:37spend, you know, it's less than two hours with this story, with these women who are

08:42negotiating these feelings.

08:45I hope that it'll contribute some kind of ease, and maybe go some way to reduce people's

08:52fear about this, the delusion that we can all avoid it.

08:58You know, this film is also definitely about euthanasia, and I think euthanasia is only

09:02legal in less than a dozen countries.

09:04I wonder what kinds of debates you're hoping this film will maybe inspire, and did it make

09:10you think differently about that?

09:12Well, in the first case, I would like to suggest we are not actually dealing with euthanasia

09:17at all, and we're certainly not even dealing with suicide.

09:22We're dealing with death with dignity, dying with dignity.

09:28It's a very different thing.

09:30It's not euthanasia we're talking about, because we're not talking about anybody doing anything

09:34to anybody else.

09:36We're talking about somebody taking their own living and their own dying into their

09:41own hands, and having agency over the course of their whole life experience, and yes, it's

09:48true that around the world there are varying approaches, there are varying laws.

09:55Our film is set in New York State.

09:57At the moment, there are 10 states in America where it's possible for death with dignity

10:02to be actioned by medical practitioners, or rather with the help of medical practitioners.

10:11New York State is not one of these states, and so Martha has to take a different action.

10:18She has to go around it in an illegal way, or a way that is currently illegal, and so

10:24Julianne's character, as her support, is dicing with a criminal scenario, and one of

10:35the things that we wanted to look at is the humane aspect of this, I would suggest, inhumane

10:42situation for both women.

10:45I think it's a debate that's bubbling to the surface all over the world at the moment,

10:50and I welcome the debate.

10:51I think the more clear-eyed and the more undelusional we are about the fact that it's not just unlucky

11:00or unclever people who die, it's all of us, the wiser we'll be able to be.

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